The US photographer Catherine Opie will show dramatic new portraits of the artists David Hockney, Gillian Wearing and Isaac Julien in a show due to open at Thomas Dane Gallery in London this autumn (3 October-18 November). The works form part of Opie’s ongoing series, Portraits and Landscapes, which look to Old Master European portraiture and historical landscape photography.
The sitters, which include Opie’s fellow artists along with the London-based fashion designer Duro Olowu, pose in front of a black drop cloth, mimicking classic 17th-century portraiture in the style of artists such as Rubens and the Spanish artist Jusepe de Ribera.
Previous sitters include the artist Kara Walker and the film-maker John Waters. Opie says in a statement: “In my recent portraits, I’m playing off the history of portraiture and memory to begin to honour my fellow artists and friends that I admire so much.” The show also includes a new work described as an “abstracted landscape”, which depicts the outlines of an unrecognisable natural feature.
Los Angeles-based Opie is known for her images of drag queens and female-to-male transsexuals, and has chronicled key US figures and events such as the inauguration of Barack Obama in 2009. She joined Thomas Dane Gallery earlier this year; her last show in London was in 2011 at the Stephen Friedman gallery, which previously represented her in the UK. A major survey of Opie’s work is due to open at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter outside Oslo later this year (6 October-7 January 2018).
